Overview
This November S|2 London will present an exhibition of large scale paintings, as well as studies and drawings, from the sixties by British Painter, Tess Jaray in Gallery One. For over five decades, Jaray has explored the geometry of space within our natural world. Upon finishing her studies at the Slade School of Fine Art in 1960, she was awarded a grant to participate in her own version of the ‘Grand Tour’ of Italy: visiting Rome, Florence, Sienna and Venice. It was during this journey Jaray was able to experience—in actuality and in real space—the work of masters who would come to inspire and inform her work. The architectural splendour of Filippo Brunelleschi’s cathedral in Florence and the impact of seeing Giotto’s frescoes in Padua left a lasting impression on her own exploration of perspective, space and colour. Jaray’s sixties work should be viewed as the origin point of her consummately original interpretation of the tools of Renaissance masters and their advancements in spatial perception and allegorical story-telling. Jaray’s paintings have a resonance in their conversation with the canon of European art history and allows her to examine with precision the deep and all-encompassing power of art and architecture throughout the ages.
